Cheesy Tastes Good

Hello world. So, I did not get much accomplished in the way of work while on vacation---as expected by everyone, especially ex-neighbor. It's okay, I have a little bit of time left to get some lesson and project planning done before the school year gets rolling. I've been working hard to finish up a guide to teaching gym, in French, with little resources, and possibly a lack of background in physical education. With dedication (i.e. not sleeping all day long due to jet lag and extreme rain), this should be finished around sometime mid-next week.

I got back to village on Sunday. My house of course was dusty (and still smells dusty), but not too dirty overall (by my standards, which means by most PCV standards it was practically spic and span). Amazingly enough, my courtyard is a jungle, again! There are cucumbers, green beans, squash, millet and all sorts of other crazy things growing. Will post pictures later (as usual). Thursday night/Friday morning it rained so hard that my roof started leaking and I thought I would go deaf. I can't find the hole though, so maybe the wind lifted the roof just enough to let the pouring rain inside. This year, though the rains started late, it has been raining almost every other day, which is wonderful! The crops are actually tall and fruit-laden. Funny because up until August, I swore that the clouds parted at my village and went around it before reforming to rain on the next village.

I haven't been doing a whole lot in village outside of reading and sleeping and working on lesson plans. The whole jet lag and not sleeping because of lights everywhere thing for a month has really taken a toll on my body, and it really just appreciated being able to do nothing for the past week. Unfortunately, most of my reading has been disappointingly disturbing, confusing, boring or all three at the same time. That's why I like to come back to this little passage on love by Katharine Hepburn in her autobiography ME:

...what "I love you" really means. It means I put you and your interests and your comfort ahead of my own interests and my own comfort because I love you.

What does this mean?

I love you. What does this mean?

Think.

We use this expression very carelessly.

LOVE has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get---only with what you are expecting to give---which is everything.

What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and you cannot help giving. If you are very lucky, you may be loved back. That is delicious but it does not necessarily happen.

It really implies total devotion. And total is all-encompassing---the good of you, the bad of you. I am aware that I must include the bad.

---This gave me great pleasure, the thought that this was pleasing him.

...There is an enormous difference between love and like. Usually, we use the word "love" when we really mean like. I think that very few people ever mean love. I think that like is a much easier relationship. It is based on sense. A blind spot---love.

When I think about this, I realize that I'm very lucky. Most of my relationships (families, friendships, etc.) aren't based on sense. If sense prevailed, I probably would have given up completely on most of my relationships a long time ago. In fact, many of you probably would have given up on me, considering my less attractive qualities (being human and all). So, I just wanted you all to know that when I am feeling lonely and just want to hear from someone (because ex-neighbor ditched me and all!), I remember your love. We might not be able to hear or see each other often, but you're there with me, just like I'm there with you.

Cheesy feel good aside. No, I'm not posting to you live from village. I really wish that I could! I biked in 40 km to hang out with my neighbor PCVs, get groceries, and get some internet time. I plan on heading back home this afternoon, after getting rehydrated and fed. The sad thing is, this won't be the most I have biked in a day. Don't worry, I will try to be more contactable this year (ha! I've said that before), or at least in a week and a few days, I will be online again in Ouaga. Courtney is COS'ing, and as sad as I am to see him go, I will be glad to celebrate him going. Besides seeing him off... sort of, I have the usual paperwork stuff that I want to get done. Unfortunately this is paid internet on a sticky keyboard; I will try to respond to emails in a week or so.

What I Did During My Vacances (or, How many times can I say "cool" in one post?)

Where are the pictures? On FB (see links at right) and Picasa. BTW, Finally got B's pictures from March uploaded online.

Well, I haven't really been doing that many exciting things over the summer. One of the toughest things for PCVs in medium-to-tiny villages is the rainy season. Once the rainy season really gets under way, almost everyone is out working in the fields farming (cultivating, which as I have discovered, really just boils down to weeding by hand after the seeds have sprouted). It makes it hard to do cool things like girls' camps or other things without lots of planning ahead of time and also being located in a more "urban" area, where people aren't all out in the fields. So, as you all know, I travelled a little bit, saw Dori, and got sick.

Happily, I got selected to attend an HIV/AIDS/Life Skills workshop in Koudougou. It was a three-day intense workshop. A lot of the information and resources shared with our counterparts was really useful/interesting/eye-opening for them, and seeing other PCVs was great because we got to exchange stories and ideas. I think the most important thing I got out of the workshop, is keeping in mind the milieu. Some things might work great in certain regions, but in others they won't work at all because of the cultural differences from province to province. Heck, village to village. Other than that, my counterpart and I formulated some game plans (well, technically, action plans, but game plans sounds way more exciting) for the upcoming school year. More importantly, we discussed what we would need to do to motivate the school director to get on board and also chip in a little bit of elbow grease.

What else was cool about Koudougou? Well, of course seeing a lot of the teachers from my village, who vacation there with their families. More exciting though: TAIWANESE people!!! I got to meet the Taiwanese people who work at the hospital. Military service is required for all of-age men in Taiwan, and often in lieu of the service people with medical training opt for a year of volunteer service in a country with need. Burkina Faso being one of the few countries that has diplomatic ties with Taiwan indeed has Taiwanese people. They took me on a tour of the hospital in Koudougou, which I think is pretty nice, but then again I am comparing it to the "hospital" in my village. On top of doing regular doctoring things, there is also acupuncture and a training program for local majors on malaria and HIV/AIDS. So, it looks like they are doing good work, and maybe I can work with them in the future to get some projects done. There are several of them that get shipped out every October/November, so this current "class" is leaving soon, but I plan on at least visiting them for a weekend because they have a basketball court (with a bad ball) and I have a good ball (with no players or basketball court nearby). I can definitely see how this will work out amazingly!

So, after Koudougou, I went back to village and relaxed for a little bit. Cleaned my house for the first time since December, and reorganized... pictures next time I am in village for sure. I finally figured out a way to hang up all the pictures and letters that everyone has been sending me (because you all are wonderful people of course!). Also, I acquired stuff from CLM because she left me (she COS'd, CONGRATS!!)... so, I had lots of fun rearranging and throwing out papers and other trash that I didn't really need at all. I'm very sad that CLM is gone because having a neighbor is/was nice. Though, Marty is moving up near me, and there is always Bryan. My nearest neighbor is now in the 65-70 km region. Bikeable in a day, but aller retour in a day will be tough physically.

Right now, I am in America. And, I am very happily getting fat. Today I leave for California, but in a little bit more than a week, I will be back in Burkina. After I get all settled in, I want to do a pre-school year warm up session with the new 6th graders. Just so they get used to hearing French, more importantly my way of speaking French. AND get reminded on how to do things like add, subtract, MULTIPLY and DIVIDE. Plus, if there's time (or if I can sucker the English teacher to come back early), I want to give them a head-start on English, and get them really excited about that. Of course, this depends on how my director is doing on advertising for this, but even if only a few kids show up, I will be really happy. If no one shows up, I'll probably just paint another mural, I'm thinking number lines this time around!

How many exclamation points did I use in this post?!

Hello World

I am back online until the 18th! Will post a longer post soon with pictures and whatnot and an update on what I have been doing. Afterwards, I will be heading home for a short vacation. I hope to go to California, but that depends on if I can good cheap plane tickets.

Fun tidbits:

Number of people who should be in the car to Ouaga: 25
Number of people who were in the car to Ouaga: 50
Number of goats on the car: 8
Number of goats that fell off the car: 1
Number of spam messages since the last time I checked email: 1748
Number of hours to travel 70 km: 2.5
Number of hours to travel 100 km: 1
Number of hours to travel 10 km: 0.75
Number of hours to bike 5 km: 0.25
Total continuous travel time: 4.5 hours
Number of days till taking off: 7 point something...

Beaver Fever

I am in town for the day to drop off paperwork, pick up paperwork, enjoy internet and air-conditioning and just escape the complete emptiness of village.

One of the great things about being a PCV is being terribly ill from a gastrointestinal infection.

I took a short trip up to Dori a few weeks ago, just to check it out and say goodbye to PCVs who are COSing and going back stateside. It was pretty fun, we crossed two flooded barrages in a bus (think tour bus-sized). Got to eat some really darned good pork (shout out to JL). Did not really see much of the city.

The day after I got back to my village, I ended up being terribly sick with giardia (aka, beaver fever, and not the good kind like those good old college days... go beavers!). Unfortunately, I did not know I had giardia and was rather miserable for the first few days trying to do the standard treatment for diarrhea (which didn't work), stabbing stomach pains, and mild fever (101-102ish). Needless to say, one MIF kit later, it was confirmed that I had giardia.

Now, I have not had problems with sending things TO Ouaga via my transport, but getting things from my transport has been a miracle recently. The last few times I spent days biking up and down my road stopping every car in Yaba and finally found out that my medication was sent back to Ouaga from Toma and then when it was re-sent it ended up in Toma again and a friend had to pick it up. Clearly, not a viable option for someone who practically lived in a latrine for ten days (since biking takes me somewhere between 30 to 60 minutes and all of my friends were gone from village when the prescription came through, also not buyable in village). So, I decided the best thing to do would be to commission someone in a large city who was on their way back to my village to pay for my meds and give them to me. Luckily, it worked out much better than the transport method (i.e. I got my meds as expected, took them and now actually have an appetite!).

Two weeks ago, I was at a solid 68 kg (just shy of 150 lbs), now I don't even dare weigh myself. I am at pinky to thumb ratio of skinniness on my wrist. And as we all know, I have rather small hands for my size, and a very short pinky.

Yes, I know this should be a much more exciting update of how I have been vacationing/cultivating/volunteering now that the school year is out, but realistically I have just been downright miserably sick in village and everyone is out farming the fields. I've got some projects in mind, and will be doing a training on HIV/AIDS and Life Skills in a few weeks. So, now that I am back up to healthy (sort of). I am going to head back to village and get more appropriate forms signed and hopefully the ball rolling in a good direction as opposed to in a circle.

Here is a fun little song I composed while being sick and in the rain (it hasn't rained all that much at all at my village, literally the clouds stop raining at my village and continue afterwards)...

Rain, Rain come today
Come again for many days
Burkinabe want to eat
Rain, Rain come today

Hello Connection; Goodbye Free Internet

Hi All,

I know I promised I would be online more because the connection was fixed, but unfortunately, the connection became unfixed encore.

I have been busy in village making yet another world map. School ended at the end of May, but then came the exam period. The BEPC came and went (end of middle school exam) and then the CEPE (end of primary school exam). The results in my village were not spectacular, but they weren't terrible either. The BAC (first tour, end of high school exam) is finishing up around the country.

A little about the French-ified school system. At the end of each school year, the students (and also anyone who isn't in the school system and registers) takes the examens to get their diplome at whatever level they are trying to get. This basically involves 2 to 4 days of intense testing followed by a second tour (basically a redo in French and Math for those who at least make a certain cutoff level). The subject material didn't seem so bad to me, but then again, there were also errors during the second tour.

Everyone is leaving my village now that the rain has really started (last Saturday). The fonctionnaires to go on vacation and the villagers to cultivate. So, all in all the only people in village are the people who are too young or too old to work all day in the fields. Unfortunately, this cross-section of the village population leaves something to be desired in the French-speaking ability.

My progress in Moore/Jula/San has not made any real advances. Though I've started to recognize that there are more similarities between Jula and San than Moore and San.

Tired. Will be internet-able for tomorrow and Saturday.

Please note. While it says "April" that's when I started this post. I really posted in June. Darn you internet.